The present invention relates generally to the field of streaming media, and more particularly to dynamically linking video from distributed sources.
Consumers are continually demanding increased flexibility in viewing streaming and other forms of media. Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The term “streaming media” can apply to media other than video and audio such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered “streaming text”. Whereas television viewing traditionally involved watching imagery received on a broadcast signal on a conventional television set, modern media experiences allow media content to be provided via broadcast, cable, satellite, portable media (e.g., DVD) and other sources. Further, the Internet and other relatively high-bandwidth networks now allow media content to be streamed or otherwise delivered to any number of devices (e.g., wireless phones, computers, tablets, etc.) that previously were not typically used for viewing media content. Consumers are therefore able to view media content on a wide variety of devices and in a wide variety of locations.
The advent of digital media and analog/digital conversion technologies, especially those that are usable on mass-market general-purpose personal computers, has vastly increased the concerns of copyright-dependent individuals and organizations, especially within the music and movie industries, because these individuals and organizations are partly or wholly dependent on the revenue generated from such works. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a class of technologies that hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders, and individuals use with the intent to control the use of digital content and devices after sale. The intent of DRM is to control executing, viewing, copying, printing and altering of works or devices. DRM technologies attempt to give control to the seller of digital content or devices after a consumer purchase. For digital content this means preventing the consumer access, or denying the user the ability to copy the content or to convert the content to other formats.